Dead of Eve (55 page)

The fire in his eyes sparkled across the wet walls. “Little fly, you cannot escape my web.”

Translucent abscesses bubbled over his abdomen, shimmering with a gray oil, festering, gasping. Then they blew. Gossamer strings erupted, spitting through the tunnel, stretching for me.

I ran. Back from where I came and into the black ink. Sticky threads clutched my shoulders, jerked me backwards. I slashed the blades through the air, cutting them away, and flung myself forward.

Volcanic dust kicked up, thickened in my mouth. I bumped against the grimy walls, groping through the dark, and slammed my brow against a jutting protrusion. My head swam. I blinked through the wet warmth slathering one eye and choked on the scream clawing in my throat.

It wasn’t footsteps that followed me. It was the drag of wings along the cavern walls and the pullulation of a thousand tiny legs moving over the rocky surface, below my feet, above my head.

My lungs wheezed and my feet moved faster. Fire enveloped my banged up muscles and dirt caked my nostrils. Would my blind run send me falling into a fissure? Or crashing into a sharp ledge, decapitating myself?

Something scratched my shoulder. Oh Jesus. Oh fuck. Don’t look back. I picked up my pace. Sharp mantels and outcrops snagged my hair and tore at my arms.

Another turn. Another tunnel. More darkness. The icy breeze warmed, clotted with steam. A bronze glow illuminated ahead. My legs pumped harder even as unease harried my focus.

Why wasn’t the Drone gaining? He should’ve caught up. Something was wrong. Then I felt it. A handful of insectile pulses branched through me. In the next breath, they doubled, strengthened with their proximity. I waved the daggers through the dark, fumbling for an outlet. Where were the aphids? Would they pour out of hidden burrows? Would my guardians be close behind?

The reddish light danced on the curved wall, growing brighter. Then, as if the glow inhaled with a great heave, the wind leapt past me and all the oxygen seemed to be sucked with it.

“You are trapped, little fly.” The chilling voice crept from the caldron of shadows chasing me.

I gulped air to fill my lungs and increased my pace toward the light. The air turned dry, scorched my face. My tank top felt hot against my breast. I whipped around the corner.

The ground disappeared. I pitched forward, balancing on the ledge of a rift, staring headfirst into a fiery molten river. With the last of my strength, I twisted back and away. My heart labored to catch up.

An eerie sucking noise tiptoed from the cave, as if flesh was sighing apart and melding back together. I found my footing and spun to face it, blades raised before me.

The red glow from the lava river washed over the Drone’s skeletal body as he floated forward. Pus sputtered from the leaking growths that covered his naked torso. His wings appeared harder, more shell-like, as they scraped along the ground behind him.

I inched back until my boots reached the edge. “What did Frida’s blood do to you?”

Madness seeped from the black wells of his gaze. “You adapted.” His eyes roamed over the spots on my shoulders. “Her blood, enhanced with your essence, enabled me to do the same.”

“So, now you’re what? An arachnid ladybug?” Would explain the alteration in his wings. “Can you fly with beetle wings?”

The wings divided into two, one fluttering more awkwardly than the other. “Consuming your unfiltered blood will strengthen me and secure Allah’s chosen race.”

A whisper drifted over my shoulder.

Ladybird, fly away!

My heart beat out of control as I turned my head. Annie rose above the fiery gorge, her hair wisping around her in a blaze of fire, her body swallowed in a wrap of flames. Her golden eyes sparked, seizing mine.

Your house is burning

Mother is crying

Father sits on the threshold

The lapping flames muffled her song.

“Step away from the ledge, Eveline.” The Drone watched me, not once moving his gaze to the burning vapor over my shoulder.

Relief that he couldn’t see her waged with my need to face her and risk revealing her presence.

Her voice wavered through the sweltering heat.

Fly into Heaven from Hell

“You have nowhere to go.” The Drone offered a mutated claw. “Come.”

A wrenching pain stitched behind my eyes. I felt the cancer of his soul crowding my head, like he was gouging his way in. He was trying to control me, and he was stronger.

S
oprano warbled.

Ladybird thought, “Some wisdom I’ll show.”

Something moved in the shadows of the tunnel. Then a body lunged and crashed into the Drone. The unbearable pain in my head disintegrated.

The tunnel became alive with the hiss of a sword, the whistle of arrows, and squeal of dying bugs. I catapulted forward with aphid speed, skidding on my knees to Michio’s side as he struggled atop the Drone’s prone body.

A growl rumbled through the Drone. In a flash of movement, he stabbed his incisors into Michio’s shoulder. Hands scratched at the Drone’s face. Mine. Michio’s. His fangs hung on.

“Your ouchie, Mama.” Annie spun in a circle, rotating faster and faster with tornado speed, spraying sparks of embers. “Lure the beast. Send it to hell.”

Her twirling slowed and she swiped her brow in a deliberate movement, eyes on me. I reached for my own, mimicking her gesture. The gash on my head wet my palm. I was bleeding worse than I realized.

Then she twirled again, arms pointed overhead like a macabre ballerina.

Never again need I hear as I turn,

Your house is on fire! Your children will burn!

Her chant dissolved as she melted into the lava river, fire popping and spurting from her smoldering frame.

The sound of slurping drew my attention away from the agony of my heart ripping at the seams. The Drone’s mouth moved against Michio’s throat, the muscles in his wings flexing and stabbing my ribs as they shuddered.

I held my blood-drenched hand up to the monster’s flaring nostrils. “Bite me.”

Either Michio was too weak to protest my plan or he trusted me. His body lolled motionless in the Drone’s embrace.

A weakness lay beneath the viciousness of the onyx eyes studying me. His arrogance would be his ruination. He retracted his teeth and shoved Michio away. Before I could roll after him, the Drone twisted, his claw shackling my throat.

I landed on my back, hands under my legs. “Do it.”

His jaw stretched, his body arched. Then he lunged. I caught his chest with my knees, my feet in his gut, caging the dagger I thrust into his chest.

He stared down at it, wide-eyed. I twisted the blade and pushed with my feet. He stepped back. A step he didn’t have.

The blazing fissure swallowed his fall. I scrambled to the edge, squinted my eyes against the ribbon of fire, waiting for the tormented scream that never came. I hung there, muscles preparing to battle a roasted skeleton bursting from the flames.

Michio’s silken voice brushed over my back. “He’s gone,
Nannakola
.”

I rolled over and hugged him. “Tell me you’re okay.”

He looked up at me, his smile brimming his gorgeous eyes, a hand clasped to his throat. “Just a bug bite.”

“Did my stoic warrior just make a joke?” I rubbed my breastbone where it tingled. “How does one fight monsters and still look so damn beautiful?”

A scarlet flood drowned out his pallor. He shifted me up his chest, the movement sluggish. “You would know.”

The stomp of boots burst from the tunnel. Strong arms dragged me to my feet, the essence of oak enveloping me. Beyond Roark’s broad shoulders, Jesse lingered in the shadows.

Seeing them returned some strength to my wobbly legs. Dammit, my arms itched to wrap around them and hold on tight. But if I did that, even for brief moment, I’d fall apart. So, I dropped my hand to my cocked hip and said, “About time you showed up.”

A clump of gore plopped from Roark’s sword, at odds with his flirtatious eyes as they roamed my face with too much perception. He grinned. “Been a little busy, love.”

I wanted to give into my own smile, but, “Georges and Tallis? Darwin?”

Michio gripped Roark’s offered hand and stood. “Guarding the entrance.” His scorching lips found mine, caressing, lingering. “Let’s go home.”

My eyebrows climbed up my forehead. “Home? Where’s that?”

Jesse stepped away from the wall. “Nymph Mountain.”

Nymph Mountain. Where we could deliver the cure and save a life. Where we could heal under Akicita’s care.

Jesse held my gaze. “Say yes, Evie.”

The lazy roll of lava pushed between the canyon banks, its surface burnished and undisturbed. I limped toward the tunnel, lips in full tilt. “Yes, Evie.”

The nymph’s cabin emitted an eerie calm. Its interior was ominous through the small window despite the glare of the late sun. Having been neglected by my ghosts since leaving Iceland, I shuddered at the memory of how I stumbled upon the isolated shack. Aaron loitering on the porch. His blood-drenched Booey clutched to my chest like a talisman.

A month had passed since the Drone’s fall. We carried a heavy burden on that walk back to the gunship. The weight of our gear. The deaths of our friends. But we also carried a cure, a hope that pushed us forward.

The gunship made one stop on its flight to the states. Georges knew of an underground supply of jet fuel in St. John’s, Newfoundland. From there, we flew to Camp Dawson, West Virginia and purloined another Hum-vee. Jesse led us through the Allegheny Mountains without compass or map. When we reached the foothill, I too remembered the trails to the sandstone wall that towered the tiny shack.

“Looks empty.” Roark leaned on his sword and rubbed the stubble roughening his cheek.

Small animal carcasses, fresh and old, scattered the porch and lawn. “She’s here.” Besides, she wouldn’t have left her children. “She’ll feel threatened if we go in. I’ll try to call her out.”

Michio stepped before me, armed with the capture gun loaded with my blood. “Please be careful.” He kissed me.

Ow. I pulled back, touched my mouth. Blood dotted my fingers. I reached up and peeled back his lip. Normal human teeth.

His tongue swiped out, caught the bead of blood on my finger. Something flashed in his eyes. What the fuck? He backed up and walked to the cabin.

“Wha’ in under feck was that?” Roark asked from my side.

“Glad you saw it. For a second, I thought I was having a flashback.”

“Ready?” Michio shouted from his position behind a tree.

Roark curled his tall frame around my back. Jesse slipped in front of me, his back to my chest, his arrow ready. Tallis, Georges and Darwin walked the perimeter.

Swaddled by skin, I felt my energy gather. Then I called the nymph from her damnation.
Come.

After a few patient pushes, she loomed in the doorway. I bathed the link in consoling thoughts. Her feet slid over the rotten boards, creaking them as she stepped off the porch.

Michio released the dart. It struck her throat and she clawed at it, wailing.

“Evie?” Roark’s voice behind me.

She thrashed on the ground, her fear stabbing my gut. I released the connection. “I’m fine. Go help Michio restrain her.”

Roark held her as Michio checked her vitals and sedated her with Kampo herbs. She would survive the reversal. She’d have a doctor and guards to ensure it.

Overcome with a heavy weight in my chest, I paced away, pulling out my music player and adjusting the buds in my ears.

A sharp draft bumped up my skin. Jesse’s fingers slid over mine. At the tree line, Annie and Aaron flickered, took shape, holding hands in their pajamas. I schooled my breathing.

Aaron leapt forward. Annie grabbed the shirt of her runaway brother. He giggled as she tucked him under her arm. The human gesture made it difficult to remember they were just the remnant energy of my children’s memories.

I covered the distance between us, Jesse at my side.

“Mama,” Annie trumpeted through a stifled yawn. From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed Jesse smiling at her.

“The day is over,” she said. “We have to go nighty-night.”

A sharp stab burned in my chest. It was an innocent comment. Still, her tone held finality. “What do you mean, sweetheart?”

She shrugged. “We have to go, but Dada says we’ll see you again someday.”

Their forms faded and solidified again. Then they vanished.

Gone. I waved my arms around me and strained my eyes, searching the air, aching to feel, to see a remnant of their presence. There were no dissolving bones, no animated inferno, no blustering vortex. They were just…gone. I dropped to my knees and screwed my eyes shut. Air pushed from my lungs in heavy rasps. They were dead, I reminded myself. I watched them die.

I curled my nails in the loose dirt. Directed my thoughts to the earth. Away from the need to scream their names. I wanted to hold them and never let them go.

When I opened my eyes, a solid frame blocked my view. Jesse pulled me to his chest. He held me as the air crackled around us, as the synergy of their memories dissipated into the surrounding realm of living things.